Yuzu's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
by Zephyra of Breeze
Summary: Yuzu goes grocery shopping in this one shot, and has a run of bad luck. VERY mild Hanayuzu, and yes, there's a tiny Hitsukarin hint in there if you squint. NOW WITH SEQUEL! in the form of another chapter
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: Not much happens in this fic. Lauren-chan, don't read, because you don't like Yuzu. This fic is totally dedicated to Zaphodiop, who put this pairing in my head. Although, I guess this isn't romance. It's barely even friendship. On a side note, have you ever tried to fix a microwave with packing tape? Let me tell you, it's a bad idea.**_

"Yuzu!" Karin barreled into her sister, knocking her to the side. The soccer ball that had nearly hit her bounced harmlessly off the chain-link fence outside the school.  
"Idiots!" Karin planted her hands on her hips. "Can't you tell us apart? Don't kick it at Yuzu!" The others on her soccer team quailed before her.

"We're sorry, Kurosaki-san! We didn't mean to!"

"Hmph." And then, addressing Yuzu: "Are you ok?"

Yuzu smiled and got to her feet, brushing dirt off her skirt. "I'm fine. Thank you, Karin. I'm sorry, I should have dodged but I zoned out. I don't know why I'm so tired."

Karin glared at her. "What have I told you about the excessive apologizing?"

"Eh…" Yuzu changed the subject. "I have to go shopping and get dinner for tonight. Would you like to come?"

Karin shook her head. "Nah, I have to practice. It would be great if someday I wasn't the only person on my team who could actually play." She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at the retreating backs of her team. "Ya hear that! You all suck!"

"It's not nice to say that, Karin…" Yuzu said quietly, but her twin was already gone, dribbling the soccer ball over to the rest of her team. Yuzu shook her head and left the school yard.

The doors of the subway train whooshed open. Yuzu sat up in shock, looking around. She had fallen asleep on the subway, apparently.

"Uwah!" She jumped up and dashed off the train, opening her purse to tuck her ticket away so she didn't lose it. Something seemed odd, though. Yuzu looked around. The surroundings were unfamiliar.

She had gotten off at the wrong stop.

"Oh no!" Yuzu spun around and tried to run back to the train, but the doors were already closing.

She tripped and fell flat on her face.

"Oww…." As the subway train pulled away she sat up.

Most of her coins had fallen out of her purse and rolled into the tracks. Both of her knees were bleeding, and the palm of her hand smarted too. Added to that was the humiliation of having just fallen down in public. At that thought, Yuzu scanned her surroundings. She saw no one she recognized. Somehow, instead of comforting her, this upset her. She had no idea where she was, she was bleeding, and she didn't have enough money left for a ticket.

Yuzu started to sniffle. "No, Yuzu, come on…." She struggled to her feet, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Be strong like Karin or Ichi-nii…"

She picked up the few coins that hadn't fallen into the tracks—there was no way she was going after those that had.

On top of everything, she still didn't know what she was going to make for dinner.

"Wahh…" But she wasn't going to cry. She shut her purse and looked around. Perhaps if she could just find a pay phone….

Ah!

Just a few stores down the street was a small convenience store with an icon in the window shaped like a phone. Surely that meant a payphone, right? She headed for the store.

Riiiiiiiiiiiing… Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing…. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing…

"Dad…… Ichi-nii… Karin… please, someone pick up…."

But no. Ishiin was probably goofing off. Ichigo was probably off doing whatever he did that took so much time (Yuzu had never been clear on exactly what her brother did, but apparently it involved a girl from his class named Rukia, and occasionally Bosco.). Karin was probably playing soccer.

"Waah…"

Perhaps if she figured out where she was, she could walk home. She left the phone area and walked up the aisles towards the counter. In one of the aisles, she paused.

How much were band-aids?

She checked the price, and then her money. After dropping most of it and then paying for a phone call, she still had just enough for one box of small band-aids. She looked at her knees. The scrapes and cuts were far too large to be properly covered by the band-aids, but it was better than nothing.

Yuzu noticed that blood on her left knee had nearly run into her sock. She wiped it away with her stinging palm, feeling her eyes fill with tears again. Then she picked up the box of band-aids and headed for the counter. She put the small cardboard box on the counter and reached for her coins. There were two teenagers manning the counter. One, the smaller of the two, was desperately trying to tape together a microwave with packing tape. The other was taller, and he was watching with amusement.

"Face it, Hana-chan, the microwave is dead. You've knocked it off the counter six times in the past week. It's not s'posed to survive crap like that."

"Aaah, Boss-san will be so mad…" Another portion of the plastic casing fell off and clattered to the floor.

"Uh… Excuse me?" Yuzu said quietly.

The taller of the two turned around. "Oh, you wanna buy those?"

Yuzu nodded.

"Great, hang on." He picked the box of band-aids up to scan the barcode. Yuzu handed him the coins.

"Ok… Quit it with the microwave and bag this, ok?" He chucked the box at the smaller kid, and it bounced off his head.

"Hai, sorry, Ganju-san," he said, picking it up.

Ganju pressed buttons on the cash register.

"Ganju-san… there's blood on this box…"

"What? So?" Ganju pointed at one of the racks of plastic shopping bags. "Put in it in a bag already."

"Is it… hers?" The two guys looked at Yuzu. Yuzu tried to look invisible and scrub the blood off her hand and onto her skirt.

"Hey, kid, is this your blood?" Ganju asked carelessly.

Yuzu nodded.

"Uwah, are you ok?" The other asked her, "What happened?"

Yuzu tried to answer him. "Uhm, I fell over, and… my knee got scraped."

"I'll be right back."

Ganju rolled his eyes as his friend headed for the back room.

"You just made his day, you know… he's been carrying around this nerdy first-aid kit since we started this job, and now he finally gets to use it."

Yuzu tried to laugh with him, but couldn't quite summon the enthusiasm.

"Here you go…" The smaller guy came out of the back room with a small red bag. He unzipped the lid and took out a large circular bandage.

"Here." He handed it to Yuzu.

She sat down and peeled off the plastic backing.

Ganju put her money back on the counter and tried to scratch the drying blood off of the bandaid box. "What's your name, kid?"

"I'm, um, not supposed to tell that to strangers…"

"Yeah, but if I let a kid totter off alone injured without helping her, my sister will freaking kill me."

Yuzu didn't want to cause anyone's death, but still she hesitated.

He shrugged. "I might as well introduce us. I'm Ganju Shiba, and this wuss is Hanatarou Yamada… Speaking of wusses…" He gave up trying to clean off the box and threw it at his friend. Again. (This time his friend caught it after it bounced off his face and into his hands) "Go put this away, will you?"

Yuzu chewed her lip. They had given her their names; it was only polite to do the same.

"I'm Yuzu Kurosaki."

Ganju gave a guffaw of laughter. Hanatarou, returning from his errand, asked her, "Are you related to Mr. Kurosaki?"

Ganju whacked him on the back of his head. "That's probably what they call her father, idiot." He turned to Yuzu. "Do ya know an Ichigo?"

Yuzu stood up, her task of applying her band-aid complete. "Yeah! He's my brother!" A thought struck her. "If you know him, could you call him on his cell phone? I'm kind of…. lost."

"Of course! Here, I'll let you talk to him."

Perhaps Yuzu's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day wasn't as bad as she had thought.


	2. Sequel: The importance of pie

_**A/N, Well, my other Hanayuzu fic was really supposed to stand alone, but a lot of people asked after a sequel. I still wasn't planning on writing one, but when I sat down to write an entirely separate fic this came out instead. Huh. Since I'm egotistical and like to talk about myself, there are footnotes. Woohoo! Aren't you excited?**_

_**Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach, you would be able to tell. No seriously, you would.**_

KA-THUMP.

"Karin, will you keep an eye on this pie so it doesn't burn?" Yuzu asked, her eyes on the ceiling. The noise had come from upstairs. Ichigo's room, to be exact. Karin nodded absently, her mind on the soccer game she was watching on TV.

Yuzu climbed the stairs, slightly nervous.

This wasn't the first instance of odd noises coming from Ichigo's room, but they had been growing more frequent since he came back from summer vacation. As she reached the top of the stairs she noticed several voices.

She hadn't heard any of Ichigo's friends come in, but that didn't mean much these days. Her brother's new friends were a bunch of weirdoes. Occasionally she wondered why he had become friends with them; often, he didn't get along very well with them.

Ichigo started yelling, cutting off her thoughts.

She peeked around the corner. Ichigo had a stuffed animal in each hand appeared to be berating them soundly.

"Uh…"

Ichigo froze, turning slowly to face her.

After an awkward silence, Yuzu smiled sweetly, attempting to lessen his embarrassment. "Um, are you enjoying playing with your dolls?"

"No, I—See, it's like…. GAH!" Ichigo threw them onto his bed angrily and went to go sulk in a corner.

Yuzu shrugged and headed back downstairs.

Halfway there her nose was accosted by a stench of burning.

"Nooo! My pie!"

Yuzu jumped the last few steps, landing lightly, and rushed over the oven.

Her pie was doomed.

"Kariiiiiin," she whined. What would they have for desert now?

"What?" Her twin replied irritably. "Oh… Sorry, Yuzu… I forgot."_**(1)**_

On the TV one of the teams scored, and Karin turned back around to scold the goalkeeper.

Yuzu frowned.

Desert wasn't mandatory, of course, but she enjoyed having something to serve after dinner every once in a while.

Her only option, it seemed, was to buy something to replace the burnt pie, as she didn't have the time or ingredients to make another one.

Yuzu grabbed her green purse, which was hanging on a hook by the door, and fumbled inside for some change. Did she have enough yen? She figured if she didn't she could ask Karin to chip in, since the pie burning was partially her fault.

Her fingers met something plastic that was shaped like a box with rounded edges.

Puzzled, she pulled it out.

It was a phone.

Yuzu blushed, embarrassed. Apparently, in the confusion the other day, she had forgotten to give back Hanatarou's phone. Whoops.

But it gave her an idea. Convenience stores like the one she had been stranded in yesterday often offered cakes and pies that could be ordered on short notice.

She flipped the phone open and paged through the numbers. There were some names she recognized, (Her brother, Rukia) and some she had never seen before._**(2)**_

When she reached a number labeled 'Store' she took a deep breath, steeled her courage, and clicked 'dial'.

Listening to the tinny ringing she began to worry about whether it was the store she worked in or some other store. If she was wrong, she decided, she would apologize to the person on the other end, serve nothing for dessert, and give the phone to Ichigo to deliver.

For some reason, she didn't want to do that.

It wasn't that Ichigo was unreliable. Actually, Yuzu couldn't explain why she wanted to give the phone back in person…

The ringing was suddenly cut off by a loud click.

"Answer the phone, dammit!" A voice roared distantly. _**(3)**_

"Sorry!" There was a clatter, and then some more odd sounds before a voice chirped cheerfully in the earpiece, "Hello! How may I help you?"

Yuzu felt a smile grow on her face. She could tell she had the right number.

"Hi! This is Yuzu, Ichigo's sister?" she replied happily.

"Oh! I'm… sorry for the trouble just now, dropping the phone and everything…"

Ah, that's what those sounds had been.

"It's ok!"

There was a silence. Yuzu struggled to remember why she had called.

"By the way, how are your injuries? Your right hand and both knees were badly scraped…"_**(4)**_

"They're good…" Yuzu tucked the phone between her shoulder and cheek in order to peel back the bandage on her palm. "Actually, they're mostly gone. Whatever that stuff was that you put on it works great!" As she reached up to grab the phone again she remembered her reason for calling.

"I still have your phone."

"Oh! That's where it went! I'm always losing things, so I guess I figured… yeah…"

Yuzu switched the phone to her left ear.

"Also, and I apologize for the strange question, but does the story you work at do pie?"

_**A/N. I managed to fit four footnotes in a fic that's not even eight hundred words. Yes, I am that good.**_

_**Karin is cooler than this. A whole lot cooler. But I really, really, needed that pie to burn. Sorry, Karin.**_

_**Here, I was going to put a Hitsurin reference. Yuzu was going to see Hitsugaya's name and be like "Oh, Karin's mentioned him." But at this point in time they haven't met, so I was forced to get rid of that line. Once again, sorry, Karin.**_

_**I dislike Ganju. A lot. I wish he didn't keep worming his way into my fics and upping the rating with his foul mouth. Darn you, Ganju.**_

_**Hey, they needed something to talk about. It's professional curiousity, because he's a healer and stuff.**_

_**Also: In case you haven't noticed (I didn't make it all that clear), this occurs during that one episode during the bount arc where all the mod souls pretend to be bounts so that Ichigo values them more (or something akin to that). There's a part where Hanatarou is walking by Ichigo's house with a pie, and I always wondered why, because I'm obsessed like that.**_

_***bow* Thank you for reading. I might consider adding another chapter to this fic if I get enough reviews *hinthint* **_


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